Great Weekend

This past weekend was a fabulous one for DH and me.  We had a blast for three days straight, and it wasn't a long weekend or a holiday or anything.

 We start our weekends on Friday whenever we can.  I drive into work with DH and work out at the company gym until lunch, when we go out and eat together.  In the afternoon I run errands or sit and read until he can escape, which he often manages to do a little early.  Most Friday evenings are all about our Friday Feast (FF), in which we eat too much and occasionally drink too much.

We usually have our FF at home, either cooking something special or getting take out, but this Friday started with the first of what we hope will be regular date nights.  We actually went out for Mexican food and Mexican martinis.  We sat in a restaurant and everything!  This was followed by beer and live music at a local pub.  Dinner was great, but we got to the outdoor pub a little too early.  The sun was still out, and as the live music was out on the patio we nearly roasted alive.  But we're determined to make it work.  Next time, wait 'til the sun goes down!

Saturday morning was filled with massive sales.  We, or at least I, started at the Sew Much More warehouse sale.  (DH napped in the car while I shopped.)  It wasn't as impressive as I'd hoped, and almost exclusively about machine sewing and machine embroidery, neither of which interests me over much.  I did snag a couple of handy accessories, though.

Next we headed over to the Citywide Garage Sale.  My main objective here was to meet my fitness goal in the air conditioning.  I also hoped to find some really cool jars to use as water glasses for my watercolor painting.  No luck there (everything was either too fancy or too expensive, or both) but I DID meet my fitness goal of thirty minutes of motion.

After lunch we headed to the grocery store.  We'd found an appealing grilled shrimp recipe we wanted to try, and while we were there we picked up some gorgeous salmon as well.

An evening spent cooking, grilling, laughing, and drinking WAY too much wine turned into a very late night of watching hilariously bad movies.  We didn't go to bed until after 2:00 am, four hours or so after our regular bedtime, because we were having so much fun neither of us wanted to quit.  (This was actually a bad thing, as both of us are night-owls who will stay up until dawn at the least provocation.  We fight that proclivity and try to go to bed closer to 10:00, but it's hard.  And we've been paying for it for the last three nights as we try and fail to get to bed before midnight.  Well worth it, though.)

Sunday started late, not too surprisingly.  We cooked up a yummy frittata for a late brunch, then spent the rest of the day being productive around the house and running a couple of local errands.  We basked in the feeling of accomplishment from everything we got done, and then the weekend ended with fabulous fish tacos made with the salmon we grilled the night before.  Culinary delight!

Something about the everyday stuff that made up this weekend was magickal, and I truly wished it would never end.

Magical Night

More on our trip:

We meant to leave on Sept. 25th, but got delayed and didn't end up leaving until the next day.  That day was all spent traveling over ground that we'd seen before, so not too many pics, although it did feel as if we were traveling into fall!

I also got some interesting blurred shots out the car window.  This one is my favorite--to me it looks like a watercolor painting.

The next day we stopped and got pics of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The second night was what we consider the first night of our adventure.  We spent an incredible night in Quebec City, from late afternoon to late morning the next day.  It was beautiful, and fun, and wonderful.  Between the sight-seeing, picture taking, shopping and an absolutely fabulous dinner, I could not have asked for a better night.

My Wonderful, Incredible, Magickal, Appreciation Journal

About a year ago I wrote a post about my appreciation journal.  In trying to keep my spirits up, I was looking back through the past 12 months of things I had to appreciate, and decided to revisit the topic.

I should prefaced this post by stating that I LOVE journals.  As some of you know, I love paper in almost all forms (plain notebook or printer paper doesn't do a whole lot for me, but just about anything else does).  Whether it be an individual sheet, a ream, a pad, or, most especially, a journal, I just love it!


Now that you know that about me, you'll understand my delight when I found this particular journal. I didn't want to spend a lot of money, but I wanted something relatively pleasant, thereby increasing the chances that I'd actually use it!  I headed over to the bargain books section of my local Chapters.  I didn't think my chances of finding a journal or blank book in that section were great, but I figured it was worth a try.

I didn't see anything, but of course I had to take the opportunity to browse through the section anyway.  After a few minutes, I saw a single copy of an untitled book with a pretty spine.  Pulling it out, I found it was the PERFECT blank book for my purposes. 

It's a pleasing square shape, with appealing, varied colors of green, pink, yellow lilac and blue on its plush cover.  Three small panels take up half the front cover, with a word written in each--Faith, Family, Friends, respectively.  ('Faith' gave me pause, because I tend to associate it with the Christian religion, but then I realized I, too, have faith.)  Flowers and a butterfly round out the rest of the front cover.  Inside, the pages are very pale versions of all these colors, with an inspiring quote on many of them, and a handy white bookmark ribbon to hold my place.

 

 
I fell in love with it instantly, and knew I had the book I needed in my hand.  I looked at the back, and the inside front cover, and the spine, but could find no title or price listed.  I looked for other copies, but it was the only one.  I decided it had been misplaced, and went to the gift books section, assuming I would find more copies there.  Nothing.  I took it up to the counter, explained my search, and handed it over to the sales clerk.  She could find no information about price on it, either, nor could she look it up in her computer without title or ISBN number or SOMETHING.  She called a manager over.  After hearing a shortened version of the story, the manager glanced at it, handed it to back to me, and said, "Just take it."

"Really?" I asked, not believing I understood her correctly.

"Yeah," she said.  "We can't find any information on it."

I thanked them and left the store, elated that I had found such a perfect book, and it hadn't cost me a cent!  I've thought since then that I was meant to have it, and that perhaps it appeared there just for me.

Magick!

Container Gardening Gone Mad

Okay, so we had one herb left after we finished potting them, and one pot that was WAY too big for it, or any of them, really.  No problem.  We'd drop by our favorite nursery, drop off the thin, plastic pots in which they sell plants (since the recycling guys won't take them), and grab another small pot for the feverfew.  Oh, and what about a tomato plant for that big pot?  Again, no problem.

EXCEPT, once we're there, we figure if we're going to get tomato plants, we should get at least a couple of plants.  And what about two varieties of them?  And what about a few pepper plants?  Oh, and look!  They have stevia!  (Only one plant, but they'll be getting more later this week.)  And so on. End result, we now have a small container vegetable garden as well as an herb garden. 

Or we will as soon as we get more pots for them.  :)